Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

We are continuing our way through the book of Colossians this morning, moving through chapter one.

We need a little recap of where we have been to set the stage for today’s passage.

Paul and Timothy in their letter to the Colossians began by thanking God for the people.

They praised God for their faith, and their love for one another.

They prayed for the peoples spiritual growth and the growth of the gospel in their lives and the world.

They prayed that the people would be filled with the knowledge of God’s will so that they might walk in a manner worthy of the Lord.

They prayed that the people would bear fruit in good work and that the people would have joy and give thanks to the Father because He qualified them to share in the great inheritance.

They prayed all of these things

They thanked God that he moved them out of complete and utter darkness and into the kingdom of His Son, Jesus who He loves and brought redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

This is all building up to our passage for today.

Our passage today is one of praise!

We will see through Paul and Timothy’s praise for Christ why we can tune our hearts to praise Jesus.

Read

Creation

Image of the Invisible God.

1 a: incapable by nature of being seen

b: inaccessible to view: HIDDEN

2: IMPERCEPTIBLE, INCONSPICUOUS

What does it mean the Jesus is the image of the invisible God?

There is a lot packed into this first statement of Paul and Timothy’s praise.

God is described as

1 Tim

If you think with me to when Moses had returned up Mount Sinai after destroying the first tablets.

Moses asks God to show Moses God’s glory.

God responds

“I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The LORD.’” 33:19

But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.”

Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, 22 and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by.

23 Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.”

Who has been around an electric welder?

Have you ever been looking when you shouldn’t?

Or perhaps were welding and didn’t get your hood down quick enough.

It can be painful.

The brightness actually burns your eyes.

That’s the same reason we don’t stare up at the sun.

God has to be invisible to us in this state lest we die.

The question then comes to us of - How can we know someone who is invisible?

Bill Graham made the statement in one of his messages.

“Well you say what does God look like?

Can you see God? Have you ever seen him?

I’ve never seen God.

I know He exists.

I've never seen the wind.

Have you ever seen the wind?

I see the effects of the wind, but I've never seen the wind.

There's a mystery to it.”

Part of that mystery though is revealed to us!

God, in Himself has a portion of Himself that we can see.

That portion is Jesus!

He is the image of the invisible God

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2016), .

As the image of God, Christ is an exact, as well as a visible, representation of God (Col.

1:19; 2:9), illuminating God’s essence.

Jesus is the very substance of God’s purposes and intentions for creation.

He is God’s pattern for all of life, and through him God will restore a broken and fallen creation in his likeness.[1]

Paul is using this phrase here, and specifically the the word image to conjure up pictures in the readers minds.

This should bring to mind for us a picture of creation.

When God created Adam and Eve in His image and this creation was very good.

Paul is pointing to the fact though that Jesus brings out the ultimate expression of God’s creation of all human life.

All human life apart from Jesus is tainted by sin.

Jesus was and is the only one who was fully faithful to God.

Jesus is also God’s faithful response to us as humans.

As the perfect image of God, Christ teaches us what God intended humans to be: “renewed in knowledge in the image of [our] Creator”

God’s good intent in creating human life is to enjoy a faithful relationship with every person.

Because of Christ, this intent can now be realized for those who are in him.

God wants us to see and praise Him.

He wants us to have a relationship with Him.

But our sin gets in the way.

In Christ we see who God is—Creator and Redeemer; what God is like—a God of mercy and love; and what God does—one who sends his Son to rescue people from the dominion of darkness and brings about the reconciliation of all creation through his death on a cross.

Calvin comments that in Christ God shows us “his righteousness, goodness, wisdom, power, in short, his entire self.”

How should the fact that Jesus is the image of the invisible God impact us?

We at this time can’t physically see Jesus like those when He lived.

Piggy backing off of the Billy Graham quote I mentioned earlier, have you ever seen the wind?

Have you seen prayers answered?

Answered prayers are for us like the effects of the wind.

One example from my own life was when I began praying specifically for what God’s direction for my life should be.

Answered prayer - As I began praying and meeting with our pastor -

God answered that prayer and desire of my heart and through that experience He caused me to grow.

I look back at that time now when doubts creep in if I am really doing what God called me to do.

I am sure many of you could share examples of answered prayers as well and if you have time with one another I would encourage that.

We should also be sure to share with each other when our prayer requests are answered that we can praise God together.

A couple other examples from scripture come from when

Jesus spoke to Thomas in

Have you believed because you have seen me?

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Thomas had doubted that Jesus lived but his mind was changed when he saw Christ.

Peter writes in

When God moves and works in our lives we see Christ.

This is one of the reasons that Paul and Timothy praise God.

They praise God because He gave His son that we might see his goodness, wisdom, power, His entire self.

Firstborn of all Creation.

The next claim for praise that we see is that Jesus is the firstborn of all creation.

When we hear firstborn we of course generally associate the term with birth.

We have the image of the first child born into a family.

While this is true, Jesus was Mary’s firstborn child, that fact that the phrase includes creation can be a little puzzling.

The phrase has been misconstrued in the past to mean that Jesus was a created being.

Though His physical body was built as ours, knit together in his mothers womb.

We know from passages like that He has existed as part of the trinity for all time.

He has no beginning and now end in the same way that the Father and the Spirit have no beginning or end.